Time Bomb Read online

  Sidestepping the reproach, I said, “Were you planning to do that in every class?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “To do it thoroughly might take quite a bit of time. Several days. The media are bound to find out you’re here. Once they do, we run the risk of more commotion.”

  “The media can be handled,” he said quickly. “My only goal is to protect the little guys.”

  “From what?”

  “Not what, Alex. Whom. The users. People who’d think nothing of exploiting them for personal gain.”

  He emphasized the last three words and paused, shot a knowing look over at Ahlward, who remained stoic.

  “The sad thing is,” he said, “with what they’ve experienced here—what they’ve seen of the political process—they run a heavy risk of growing up cynical. Uninvolved. Which doesn’t bode well for us as a society, does it? We’re talking stagnation, Alex. To the extent that that kind of thing takes over on a large scale, we’re really in trouble. So I guess what I want is for them to see that there can be another side to politics. That there’s no need to stagnate or give up.”

  From erosion to stagnation. My second dose of political rhetoric in as many days.

  I said, “Another side as opposed to the one represented by Assemblyman Massengil?”

  He smiled. “I won’t kid you. My opinions on Assemblyman Massengil are public record. The man’s a dinosaur, part of an era that should be long-forgotten. And the fact that he’s involved has made me take a special look at this situation. This city’s changing—the entire state is. The world is. There’s a new age of transworld intimacy that won’t be stopped. We’re inexorably linked to Latin America, to the Pacific Rim. Cowboy days are gone, but Sam Massengil hasn’t the vision to conceive of that.” Pause. “Has he been causing any more problems for you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure? Don’t be shy about letting me know, Alex. I’ll ensure you’re not caught in the middle.”

  “I appreciate that, Gordon.”

  His flipped his jacket forward and slipped it on. Patted his hair. “So,” he said, smiling, “this must be fulfilling work.”

  “It is.”

  “I notice there’s this other psychologist doing a lot of speechifying to the media. Fellow with a beard.”

  “Lance Dobbs. So far he’s limited his involvement to talk.”

  “You mean he hasn’t actually been here?” Indignation, mock or otherwise.

  “No, he hasn’t, Gordon. One of his assistants came by but I convinced Dr. Dobbs that too many cooks would spoil the broth and she hasn’t been back since.”

  “I see,” he said. “That’s certainly true—too many cooks. True in lots of other regards.”

  I didn’t respond.

  He said, “So. You feel you have it worked out. With Dr. Dobbs.”

  “So far so good.”

  “Excellent. Good for you.” He paused, touched his harmonica pocket. “Well, good luck and more power to you.”

  The old two-handed grip and a nod at Ahlward. The redheaded man moved away from the door and smoothed his lapels. From inside the classroom came shouts and laughter, the young teacher’s voice, tight with frustration, trying to be heard over the tumult.

  Latch turned his back on me. The two of them began walking away.

  I said, “Planning on coming back, Gordon?”

  He stopped, and lowered his eyebrows, as if pondering a question of cosmic proportions. “You’ve given me food for thought, Alex. I really heard you. About doing it right. Coordinating. So let me bounce it around, check my calendar, and get back to you.”

  I waited until the corridor was empty, then followed at a discreet distance, made it to the door, and watched them crossing the yard, ignoring the children playing there. They then left the grounds, got into a black Chrysler New Yorker, Ahlward driving, and rode away. No other vehicles pulled out behind them. No retinue of young scrubs, no sign of the media. So perhaps the in-the-neighborhood story was genuine. But I had trouble buying it. Latch’s eager response to my question about Massengil, his questions about Dobbs, convinced me his agenda had been other than altruistic.

  And the timing was too cute, coming so soon after my summons to Massengil’s office. Not that yesterday’s visit had been public knowledge. But Latch had already displayed access to Massengil’s itinerary—the day of the sniping. Ready to do battle on camera.

  Now the two of them were would-be heroes. A couple of sharks, vying for a tooth-hold in the underbelly of tragedy. I wondered how long it would go on.

  Politics as usual, I supposed. It reminded me of why I’d dropped out of academic medicine.

  I left the school and tried to put all thoughts of politics out of my mind long enough to get some dinner down. Driving quasi-randomly, I ended up on Santa Monica Boulevard and stopped at the first place I spotted that offered easy parking, a coffee shop near Twenty-fourth Street. Someone had begun holiday decorations—plastic poinsettia on each table; windows frosted and painted with mistletoe; spavined, bucktoothed reindeer; and a few baby-blue menorahs. The good cheer hadn’t spread to the food and I left most of my roast beef sandwich on the plate, paid, and left.

  It was dark. I got into the Seville and pulled out of the lot. Traffic was too heavy for a left turn, so I headed west. Another car’s headlights filled my rearview mirror. I didn’t think much of it until a few blocks later, when I turned right again and the lights stayed with me.

  I drove to Sunset.

  Still the headlights. I could tell, because the left one flickered.

  Narrowly spaced beams. Small car. Compact car. Too dark to determine the color or make.

  I joined the eastbound flow on the boulevard. Each time I looked into the mirror, the headlights stared back at me like a pair of yellow, pupil less eyes.

  I caught a red light at Bundy. The headlights edged up closer. A filling station was at the nearest corner, the pre-embargo type—expansive lot, full-serve pumps, pay phone.

  I rolled forward. The headlights followed suit. When the amber light flashed for the north-south traffic, I rolled for two seconds, then made a sharp turn up the driveway, kept going until I reached the pay phone.

  The car with the flickering headlight started up and drove across the intersection. I followed it, taking in as many details as I could. Brown Toyota. Two people in front. Female passenger, I thought. I couldn’t see the driver. The passenger’s head turned, facing the driver. Talking to each other. Not even a glance in my direction.

  I scolded myself for being paranoid, got back on Sunset, and drove home. The operator at my service gave me an earful of messages—one from Milo, the rest all business. I put in return calls, reaching one late-working attorney, a bunch of answering machines, and the desk sergeant at Robbery-Homicide, who told me Detective Sturgis was out, and no, he had no idea what the call had been about. I took the mail in, changed into shorts, running shoes, and a T-shirt, and went for a night jog. The Santa Anas had returned, gentler; I ran with the wind, felt airborne.

  I came back an hour later and sat by the fishpond, unable to make out the koi as anything more than bubbles on the black surface of the water. But hearing them, hearing the song of the waterfall, my mind started to clear.

  I stayed there a while longer, then went back up to the house, ready for the present tense. I thought of phoning Linda, tried to convince myself my motives were purely professional, then realized I didn’t have her home number. Neither did Information. I viewed it as an omen, settled in for another night alone.

  Nine o’clock. Evening news on the local station; I was becoming a tragedy junkie. I cracked a Grolsch, settled back, and clicked the remote.

  The broadcast began with a regurgitation of the usual international mess, followed by a machine-gun spatter of local crime stories: an armored-van robbery at a savings and loan in Van Nuys, one guard killed, the other in critical condition. A Pacoima crack-smoker who’d gone berserk and stabbed his eight-year-old son to de
ath with a butcher knife. A five-year-old girl snatched out of her front yard up in Santa Cruz.

  Tough competition; nothing on the Hale sniping.

  I sat through ten minutes of the feathery stuff that passes for human interest journalism in L.A. Tonight’s main feature was a millionaire Newport Beach urologist who’d won the lottery and vowed his life-style wouldn’t change. Next came shots of the new Rose Queen opening a shopping mall in Altadena.

  Happy talk between the anchors.

  Weather and sports.

  The doorbell rang. Probably Milo, here to tell me, in person, what he’d called about.

  I opened the door, directing my eyes upward toward Milo’s six-foot-three level. But the eyes that stared back were a good nine inches lower. Bloodshot gray-blue eyes behind eyeglasses in clear plastic frames. Bloodshot but so bright and focused, they seemed to pierce the glass, dominating a smallish, triangular face. Pasty complexion rendered sallow by the bug-light over the door. Mouth tightly set. Small, thin nose with narrow nostrils flanking an incongruous bulb-tip. Wispy brown-gray hair blowing in the night wind. A nondescript face above a tan windbreaker zipped to the neck.

  My gaze fell to his hands. Pale and long-fingered, wringing each other.

  “Dr. Delaware. I presume.” Nasal voice. Not a trace of levity. The hackneyed line rehearsed... No, more contrived than that. Programmed.

  I looked over his shoulder. Down in the carport was a silver-gray Honda with blackened windows.

  I was suddenly certain he’d been standing out there for a while. My neck hairs prickled and I put one hand on the door and took a step backward.

  “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “My name is Burden,” he said, making it sound like an apology. “My daughter’s... There’s been some... trouble with her. She... I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes, I do, Mr. Burden.”

  He extended both hands in front of him, knitted together, as if containing something precious or lethal. “What I... I’d like to talk to you, Dr. Delaware, if you could spare the time.”

  I stepped back and let him in.

  He looked around, still wringing his hands, eyes bouncing around the living room, like a billiard trick shot.

  “You have a very nice home,” he said. Then he started to weep.

  11

  I let him in and sat him down on the leather sofa. He sobbed tearlessly for a while, making dry, choking noises, hid his face in his hands, then looked up and said, “Doctor...”

  Then nothing.

  I waited.

  His glasses had slid down his nose. He righted them. “I... May I please use your... facilities?”

  I pointed him down the hallway to the bathroom, went into the kitchen, made strong coffee, and brought it back, along with cups and a bottle of Irish whisky. I heard the toilet flush. A few minutes later he came back, sat down, folded his hands in his lap and stared at the floor, as if memorizing the pattern on my Bukhara.

  I put a cup of coffee into his hands and offered the whisky bottle. He shook his head. I spiked my own drink, took a long, hot swallow, and sat back.

  He said, “This is... Thank you for allowing me into your home.” His voice was nasal, oboelike.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Burden.”

  He shielded his face with one hand and moved it from side to side, as if trying to shake off a bad dream. The hand holding the cup trembled badly and coffee sloshed over the sides and onto the rug. He uncovered his face, put the cup down, rattling it against the glass top, snatched a napkin, and scrambled to mop up.

  I touched his elbow and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

  He backed away from the contact but allowed me to take the sodden napkin from his hand.

  “I’m sorry... It... I don’t mean to intrude.”

  I took the napkin into the kitchen in order to give him more time to compose himself. He got up and paced the room. I could hear his footsteps from the kitchen. Rapid, arrhythmic.

  When I returned, his hands were back in his lap, his eyes back on the rug.

  A minute passed slowly, then another. I drank coffee. He just sat there. When he made no attempt to speak, I said, “What can I do for you, Mr. Burden?”

  He answered before the last word was out of my mouth. “Analyze her. Learn the truth and tell them they’re wrong.”

  “Tell who?”

  “Them. The police, the press, all of them. They’re delusional. Saying she shot at children, was some kind of homicidal monster.”

  “Mr. Burden—”

  He shook his head violently. “Listen to me! Believe me! There was no earthly way she would...could do anything like that. No way she would use a gun —she hated my... She was pacifistic. Idealistic. And never children! She loved children!”

  I imagined the final scene in the storage shed. Her lair. Black clothing, a rifle, a cup of urine.

  He shook his head, said, “Impossible.”

  “Why come to me, Mr. Burden?”

  “For analysis,” he said, with just a trace of impatience.“Psychoanalysis. That’s your specialty, isn’t it? Childhood motivation, thought processes of the developing organism. And despite her age, Holly was a child. Psychologically. Believe me, I should know. That would put her within your professional purview, wouldn’t it? Am I correct?”

  When I didn’t respond right away, he said, “Please, Doctor. You’re a scholar, an in-depth man—this should be right up your alley. I know I’ve chosen right.”

  He began reciting the titles of studies I’d published in scientific journals. Ten-year-old articles. In perfect chronological order. When he was finished, he said, “I do my research, Doctor. I’m thorough. When things count, it’s the only way.”

  The sorrow gone from his face, replaced by a haughty smile—an A student expecting praise.

  “How’d you find me, Mr. Burden?”

  “After I spoke to the police it became clear to me they weren’t after the truth, had preconceived notions. Just plain lazy, concerned with wrapping things up. So I began observing the school, hoping to learn something— anything. Because nothing they told me made sense. I re-corded the license plates of anyone going in and out of the school grounds and checked them against my files. Yours cross-checked with several of my lists.”

  “Your lists?”

  The oboe played a couple of long notes close to laughter. “Don’t be alarmed—it’s nothing ominous. Lists are my business. I should have mentioned that in the beginning. Mailing lists. Direct mail advertising. Applied demography. Data that can be called up with regard to occupation, ZIP code, marital status—any number of variables. You were on the mental health specialist list. Subclass 1B: Ph.D. clinical psychologists. Yet you weren’t the psychologist who’s been talking to the media, claiming he’s been treating the children. It made me curious. I investigated you further. What I learned gave me hope.”

  “My journal articles gave you hope?”

  “Your articles were good—scientifically sound. Relatively hard methodology for a very soft science. That showed me you’re a thorough thinker—not some civil servant just coasting. But what really heartened me were the data I obtained from the lay press—newspaper articles. The Casa de Los Niños case. The Cadmus scandal. You’re obviously a man who seeks the truth single-mindedly, doesn’t run from challenges. I’m a good judge of character. I know you’re the man for me.”

  More A-student hubris. And something else: a hunter’s smile.

  Where had the grief gone? A spooky little man.

  I said, “Speaking of the truth, how about showing some identification. Just to be thorough.”

  “Certainly. It always pays to be thorough.” He produced a cheap wallet and from it plucked a driver’s license, Social Security card, and several credit cards. The photo on the license had a furtive, sullen look that reminded me of a dead girl. I glanced at the credit cards, all gold, all in the name of Mahlon M. Burden. Returned to the license photo and stared at it some more.<
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  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, “but for the most part, she resembled her mother.”

  I gave him back his ID.

  “She had her mother’s innate goodness, as well,” he said. “Compassion for all living things. This whole thing is a travesty—you’ve got to help me.”